A Predatory Discourse on Entrecard
Predator Press
[LOBO]
As a 4-year blogger, I've spent the last several months aggressively seeking new ways to shamelessly whore my stuff.
I don't know about the rest of you, but the bottom line is that I'm a writer, and my goal is to get paid writing somewhere; therefore, I have to balance whoring with the generation of copious amounts of this schlock on a consistent basis.
The end result is a lot of a product of bare minimum quality, which I'm proud to say I excel at.
Occasionally, this has made me a little zealous to get on board with "the next big thing". As you may already know, I'm not much of a "commenter", and generally this is key in any blogger's success. I try. I swear I do ... but I just don't have it in me. Before today, if you saw any one of my various little avatars pop up on your site, you generally could rest assured that I like it.
Well, "Entrecard" has totally ruined all that.
Recently, the "blogosphere" got injected with this little tool and it has shifted my M.O. entirely. Now, instead of surfing news stories in search of story ideas, I'm hopping a startling number of interlinked and cross-promoting sites in order to get Enrecard credits -I call it 'skimming' for lack of a better term. These credits are useable for advertising on other sites, which presumably skim through my site with the exact same level of utter disinterest.Don't get me wrong: via Entrecard, I did discover some real gems like spacedust and neOnbubble -brilliant sites that I am eager to share with you. But I was accepting whatever the hell ad happened to cross my path, and a lot of that stuff was just plain 'ole commercial.
I was starting to feel kinda dirty.
The fact that I evidently had "standards" shocked no one more than myself.
So a few nights ago, I couldn't live with it anymore; I ended up doing what likely constitutes the Entrecard Cardinal Sin, and gutted my ad schedule. This made me feel even worse, because now I wasn't following through with commitments I've made.
But how dare those other blogs exploit my Entrecard naivety, wreck up my credibility, and leave and make me feeling this way?
... I blame them entirely.
So to avoid the risk of feeling rejected -or more importantly, pissing me off- I've come up with some statistics to aid you should you seek becoming advertised on Predator Press:
Sites containing the words "Marketing" or "Make Money Online": 0%Has suicide really fallen that far out of fashion?
Sites that promote anonymous link exchanging: 0%
The rest of humanity pays for prostitution. Why shouldn't you?
Blogs written by guys named Travis: 0%
Know why King Travis the Second never conquered Rome? 'Cus there never was no King Travis the First, Second or Third. It's a bullshit name we just made up like twenty years ago. If you're going to bother making up names, try something with balls like 'Chainsaw'.
... Unless it's a boy. Then I like 'Todd'.
Sites that automatically start playing music: 0%
You want me dancin or reading? I think another site already has this covered. It's called iTunes.
But thanks ... every cubicle in earshot really needed a sudden blaring dose of your '80s crap.
Sites with popups: 0%
I will kill you all.
Slowly.
Sites about pets and cutesy pics with captions: 50%
Actually this statistic surprised me too ... while I honestly think icanhascheezburger has pretty much got the market cornered, who can get enough of animals?
They're delicious!
Sites that make me laugh, are clever, insightful, amusing, thought provoking, and/or have potential: 75%
Just "good enough" isn't always good enough. We love you, but Predator Press is a fickle mistress.
In the spirit of this new tradition, I promise that the only ads you'll see here will be hand-picked kickass sites worth clicking on.
And to commemorate this day, I'm proud to have a kickass blog that I read on a consistent basis in the slot. I've been onboard with .45 Caliber Headspace since it's inception: it's darkly funny, well-written and frankly one of the best sites out there. From day one I knew it was going to be a monster success, and I was not wrong.
Thanks for the laughs .45.
We're glad you're here.
Comments
And like you, I've discovered some great sites, even added a few to my blogroll, and I had some good sites to promote.
But now my box is empty, and I think, what's wrong with trying to make money online? It's not like they're selling Nazi gear.
But I Must be strong.
I also enjoy your writing and always try to keep up with your frenetic publishing schedule. Noone works harder to keep it fresh in either frequency or diversity of topic. This is always to the benefit of your readers. If you don't find it here, just come back next week. I usually have to check to make sure you haven't outtopic'd me already.
I'm also very in tune with your ideas on promotion and community. I only comment on posts or sites that I legitimately enjoy, and even then I've been scaling it back to those I especially enjoy having a shared dialog with. As you've said before, you can spread yourself too thin on the social aspects.
I'm also pretty selective with Entrecarding. I reject alot of ads. I also reject a lot of requests on social networks. I just don't care about having loads of unqualified traffic and the corresponding high bounce rate. I'm only interested in having people around that I actually care to follow.
At a minimum, I reject anybody that can't be bothered coming to my site, bounce or no. They want to place an ad, but can't even drop a card to give me a stinkin' credit? Piss off. I'm not that kind of blog. haha. I also try to keep it relevant, whether placing ads or accepting them. I don't really care to be associated with the American Idol webring, or whatever.
Anyhow, gotta get back to writing. My time management sucks lately. Thanks again, though. I think my Entrecard looks especially sexy here.
(I am pretty picky about my ECards advertisers too...but in general I think it's a cool idea)
I've been extremely picky about which ads I'll allow on my site since day one. Beautiful girl in a bikini on a beach ad for a site by a guy in Singapore who only writes paid posts for routers and hair dye? Yeah, I'm going to pass on that one. I have very little respect for most of the people who visit my site but even I wouldn't be so cruel as to try to send them there.
Great article!
I enjoyed your post, I was approving any old shit ads at first but now I try to stick with my favourites.
I have found some really cool blogs among the shit.
stop trying to beat me.
Actually, you do come across some interesting blogs, not necessarily all up there in the pearl class, but interesting. I am totally intrigued that there is now a blog there called Consecrated Life - become a nun. I have to presume that people will self-select when applying for advertising there. Top Sexy Girl might be on to a loser there.
So I finally signed up. I did find a few friends that I've been reading already, like you LOBO, so I will drop on their sites. I found you to OffGrid, thanks for swinging by.
I hope you get more than 1 click :-)
Hollydale Done!